President Barak Obama came to office on a platform of change. Change is what transformational leadership is about but change for the sake of change is rarely a good idea and often ends in disaster. As the Obama administration approaches its first year in office, let us look at how Barak Obama has done as a transformational leader.
There are three components or acts to successful transformational leadership (Tichy & Devanna, 1990). The first of these is revitalization or recognition of the need for change. As the 2008 presidential campaign went on, the economy began to slip into a recession. Everything came to a climax with the banking crisis in September of 2008. The unrest caused by the economic crisis helped fuel this recognition for change. Since then Senator Obama was running on a promise to bring change, this crisis worked in his favor and contributed to his election. However, after almost one year in office, do the American people still have the same recognition of change?
Obama’s poll numbers have been slipping ever since he came into office. This leads us to believe either the American people have lost their desire for change or they do not like the change coming from the administration. With the country still suffering the affects of the recession and unemployment at over 10 percent, it is safe to assume that the people still desire change. Therefore, it is safe to assume the people have problems with the change this administration is bringing.
Obama came into office with a nation desiring change and believing his proposals were what the country needed. The nation still believes in the need for change but it has lost faith that Obama is the transformational leader the nation needs at this time. His act 1 of revitalization started strong but has weakened over time.
The second act of transformational leadership involves the creation of a vision (Tichy & Devanna, 1990). Once again, the candidate Barak Obama did a good job of creating a vision of an improved nation brought about by his proposed changes. However, the polls indicate that the American people have lost faith in the vision Obama spoke of as they see rising unemployment and a protracted recession. Act two, just like act 1, started strong but has grown weaker over time.
The final act of transformational leadership involves the institutionalizing of change (Tichy & Devanna, 1990). The hype over the need for change and great visions of what the change will bring are useless if the change is not successfully implemented. The Obama Administration has embarked on a policy of spending the country out of the recession. This policy was used during the great depression and caused the depression to last eight years longer than it should have. This is evidenced by the fact that unemployment peaked at 25 percent in 1933 and did not dip below 10 percent until the U.S. involvement in World War II in 1941 in spite of the massive spending of The New Deal (Random Facts, 2009). If the Obama administration is to restore the public’s belief in Obama’s need and vision for change, they need to change the direction of their policies.
There is a model for successful implementation of transformational change and in next weeks posting we will look at another transformational leader who successfully used this model to implement the changes the nation needed. The country desires change and shares a common vision of a greater America but there is a division on how to implement these changes.
References
Random Facts (2009, March 28, 2009). 50 interesting facts about the great depression. Retrieved December 29, 2009, http://facts.randonhistory.com/2009/04/12_depression.html
Tichy, N. M., & Devanna, M. A. (1990). The transformational leader: The key to global competitiveness. New York: John Wiley & Sons Inc..
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